Television devices such as LCD or Plasma televisions produce high-quality sound, often to one or more speakers associated with the television. In some situations, headphones are associated with the televisions.
In the past, headphones were an after-thought or add-on that was not integrated into the television system. Even if a facility or jack was provided for connecting a headphone, the operation of the headphone was not anticipated by the television. The headphones simply received the same sound as provided by the television to the speakers. Several other audio systems such as radios mute sound from speakers when a headphone is plugged into their headphone jack. This type of operation is not feasible when the headphones are wireless being that there is no plug and unplug operation indicating the desire to use the headphones without sound coming from the speakers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,041,225 to Jung describes wireless headphones associated with a monitor. This provides an enablement of such an association, but does not provide any automated operation within the monitor based upon activation of the wireless headphones. Instead, the system described includes a monitor remote control integrated into the wireless headphones. This requires the user of the headphones to press buttons to switch the audio from the speakers to the headphones and visa versa. There is no docking/charging system described that detects the absence of the headphones and takes steps based upon such information.
What is needed is a television system that will detect active use of a set of headphones and configure itself to take advantage of such.